Tuesday, March 11, 2014

From one giant to another

Once upon a time, there lived a herd of elephants in a forest. They loved their forest and whiled away the time happily there. One night, the littlest elephant in the group was found sitting all alone by herself, by the side of the forest pond. She seemed to be talking to herself. Her mother was searching for her and found her there. Mother then asked her why she was sitting there, all alone. The baby elephant informed the mother matter-of-factly that she was talking to the moon. It was then that the mother saw the moon, a full moon, hanging like a golden ball in the sky.
"What did the moon say?", asked the mother.
"I was asking the moon about the water and where it comes from. The moon says there is a lot of water on earth. In fact, more water than land - did you know that, mama?"
"Why no, I didn't... is that so, dear? "
"Yes, the moon says that most of the water is in something called an ocean and that in fact our forest is not so far away from the ocean. Is that true?"
"I'm not sure. I've never seen it myself. But we can ask grandmother. May be we can even visit sometime."
"Let's go now, mama.. now!!!"
"Hush now, don't shout... I don't know if we can do that. Come let's ask grandmother."
And so they went up to grandmother and asked her. Grandmother knew about the ocean's existence, of course. To their surprise, she even agreed to leave immediately for a visit to the beach.
So the elephant herd got together and decided to leave for the ocean. They walked through most of that night and reached the seashore around dawn. What a lovely sight it was for them to see.. The pale pink sky, reflected in the calm waters of the never ending sea.... They played and frolicked in the water. The baby elephant was happiest of them all. She walked along the surf, watching the water curl around her legs. Her grandmother held her tightly by the trunk for she was afraid the waves would carry away her baby.
It was then that they saw a strange sight. They saw what they thought to be a huge fish lying on the beach. It was really huge, about 4 to 5 times their size. Grandmother finally realized that it was a whale. She held onto the baby elephant who wanted to go near the whale and look at it more closely. They could not be sure it was not dangerous. And then the whale spoke to them!!!
"Help me, please help me", it cried.
That was all it took for Baby Elephant to shake free of Grandmother's hold. She ran to the whale.
"Who are you? How did you get here?"
"I'm a whale", replied the huge animal. "I came here following some dolphins and got trapped onshore when the waves receded with the tide. I might still live if you push me out to sea.".
Baby elephant looked at the animal with wondrous eyes.
"Let's help him, grandma!"
Grandmother elephant too could not bear to leave the animal helpless and stranded like that. She decided to help. She call out to her herd of elephants and together they heaved and shoved at the whale. It took so many of them to do the job but they finally succeeded in pushing it out to a depth enough that it was able to swim away.
The happy whale circled around in the ocean and they could see it's flat back in the ocean with the water occasionally rising out of it's blowhole. It sang a happy song and called out to the baby elephant:
"Baby, come, I'll give you a ride!"
The baby elephant ran into the surf and sat atop the whale and literally had 'a whale of a time'!!